The 2024 budget allocations for the Office of the President and the Chief of Staff Secretariat have drawn harsh criticism from the Minority caucus in Parliament.
Minority Leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson demanded an explanation for the “exponential increases,” citing a 100% increase in the President’s office budget to over 1 billion cedis and a 277 million cedi allocation for the Chief of Staff’s office.
“The Office of the President, in particular, their budget is being increased by over 100 per cent, from 2023 to 2024 so what exactly are they going to do in 2024, is it the elections, is that the reason they have budgeted so much? The office of the presidency alone, their goods and services alone is 450 million cedis.”
“The budget they have allocated to the Office of the President alone is 1 billion and 93 million Ghana cedis for the year 2024. Mr Speaker, All of us agree that the country is in a crisis and there is a need for us to be careful about how we spend money.”
The Minority also slammed the government’s establishment of Development Authorities like the Coastal Development Authority (CODA) as “a waste of resources” and a “pretext to amass resources for wrongful spending.”
They called for these authorities to be outlawed, arguing they have failed to deliver on their mandates.
Governs Agbodza, the Minority Chief Whip, led the charge against the authorities, stating those entities are nothing but avenues for siphoning funds away from critical areas.
